New User needs info

Hello,
Please bear with this brief preface-
A friend has True Image 9.0 and said it works great for him.
I noticed 9.0 for sale on the internet very cheap - after reading the forum, I realize this is not a good idea, and will purchase 11.0 from Acronis

However- I downloaded a 9.0 trial version just to verify TI would work.
I created a rescue disk, and I backed up my hard drive to an external USB
drive (Seagate Free Agent 250 Gig).

Using max compression, the backup archieve was created ( 15 Gig).
When I choose the 'validate back up archieve' option, I get the message

"This not the last created volume of the backup archive. Please insert the last created volume to start working with this archive. "

I'm unclear as to what's gone wrong. ( I chose 'validate backup archieve' from the main screen of TI - no reboot or restoration disk involved).

Since I've decide to go with 11.0, I suppose I'll download the 11.0 demo and try again.

One thing that I should mention. I'm having trouble with my virus scan and the 'System Volume Information\tracking.log' file, as my virus scan hangs up there. I'm determining what I should do about this, but I wonder if it's anyway related.

I tried to do another backup last night, over night, and this morning the computer was locked up without completing. Maybe coincidence....

In any case, getting a successful validate does not mean that a Recovery will be 100% successful. You have to, at least for the first few backups, do an actual restore to a spare drive and make sure that spare drive will boot like the original.

BTW, ver 9 build 3677 works fine for me too and I see no reason for updating to later versions.

adoganalog,
Maybe review my guides below and see there is anything there of help.
If the drive receiving the backup files is NTFS, you will get one large file unless you choose the option of "archive splitting".

Did you mention what operating system you are using?

One workaround you might try regarding the system restore files would be to disable the function or use the disk cleaning option to keep only the last copy. Note: Disabling will remove all previous system restore copies.

When booting from the Rescue CD, your anti-virus software is a non-issue.